


Spiderchristmas

by Not_You



Series: Eight-Armed Hugs [5]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Candy, Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Christmas Presents, F/M, Gen, Past Abuse, Pictures, Spiders, Video & Computer Games, clint is determined to have a merry christmas goddammit, spiderlings have odd taste in entertainment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-08
Updated: 2015-05-08
Packaged: 2018-03-29 15:24:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3901297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Not_You/pseuds/Not_You
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The spiderlings's first Christmas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spiderchristmas

By the time December comes, the spiderlings look about seven years old, but they're still only about thirty-five pounds apiece. They're racing ahead in leaps and bounds with their reading, and getting better and better at math just in time to keep asking how many days until Christmas. Despite all Natasha's warnings that they have enough crap and not to expect piles of gifts, the girls are excited about it anyway. Clint aids and abets them with a bizarre strain of genuine Yuletide cheer that Natasha has never seen before. Sure, Clint has always given and received with real enjoyment, but now he's actually insisting on a tree, and reading 'The Night Before Christmas' aloud. It takes Natasha a little while to put it together, but when Clint starts talking to the kids about charity and helping out, she remembers his few, oblique references to his own family, and her slight irritation vanishes. Of course Clint wants his girls to have a good Christmas, with poems and food and games, not one parent quietly distributing welfare gifts to keep from waking the monster in the next room.

The Avengers give away a staggering amount of stuff every Christmas, in addition to all of Tony's philanthropy during the rest of the year. Natasha always signs things to be auctioned off or at the request of very sick or very poor children, and has given her legal permission for Stark Industries to distribute Black Widow merchandise, but this year she finds herself doing actual shopping. The girls perch on her desk and her lap and the back of her chair and point to things onscreen, chirping, "Get that!" and "That would be fun, they should have that!" It's the first time Natasha has personally allocated Tony's ridiculously generous Christmas budget, and it's actually sort of fun, especially with the girls so engaged.

After a while she gets sick of it, though, and leaves them cheerfully covering the tower in adorably tacky Christmas decorations under Steve and JARVIS's combined supervision. She finds Clint on one of the common floors, and takes his arm. "You. Me. Range? Gym?"

He laughs. "Holiday cheer getting to you, baby?"

"Just a little," she grumbles. Everything gets so bright and loud around Christmas. 

Clint smiles, and kisses her cheek. "We can play whatever you want."

There are a lot of different espionage-based games that she and Clint play together, and they end up darkening one of the training floors and playing High Stakes Hide-And-Go-Seek for a while. Points are awarded for creativity and viciousness, and Natasha is bruised, hungry, and happy when she and Clint at last call a truce and head back up to check on the girls. They find their floor quiet, which in the context of their dexterous and crafty little spiderlings is deeply alarming.

"Jarvis?" Clint asks, glancing around.

"The Misses Wilson are with Captain Rogers, sir."

"On his floor, yeah?" Clint asks, pulling off his sweaty shirt and grabbing a fresh one as Natasha does her best not to salivate too much.

"Yes, sir."

They go one level down, as JARVIS announces their presence to Steve and lets them in. He smiles sheepishly from the couch, looking like they've caught him at something. He is covered in spiderlings, and has a large book open on his knees. "Uncle Steve was reading to us!" Zoya chirps.

"More Christmas stories?" Natasha asks, scooping Rada and Alisa into her lap and sitting at one end of the couch while Clint takes the other.

Steve lifts the book, revealing it as a beautifully-illustrated Nativity story for children. "The main one, yeah. Uh, I'm not proselytizing. Just so you know."

Clint shrugs. "Cultural literacy is important."

"Herod's a dick," Anastasia says, and Clint bursts into laughter, only exacerbated by Steve gently chiding the spiderlings about their language as they all join in their sister's abuse of the wicked king. As far as Natasha is concerned it's all fairytales together, and she can't say anything against Steve sharing the ones that mean the most to him. Besides, he has a nice voice. Natasha sits quietly and cuddles the girls as they crawl all over her as well as Clint and Steve, almost dozing as she tunes into the scent and weight of her babies and the hum of Steve's voice through the springs in the couch.

"Hey," Clint says at last, speaking softly. "Rise and shine, spiderbabe." 

When she opens her eyes, she's alone on the couch except for Alisa and Oksana, who have fallen asleep in her lap. "Feed me, brood-slave."

He grins, calling toward the kitchen, "Hey Steve, mind if we eat a bunch of your meat?"

"Just thankful to have plenty!" Steve calls back, and Natasha smiles to hear the happy, hungry chirping of the girls. They still revert to their first, baby calls of 'meeeeet!' when they're particularly excited, and Clint heads back to the kitchen, reminding them not to bite Uncle Steve as he goes. Natasha chuckles, and lazes for a few more minutes until the smell of cooking steak rouses Alisa and Oksana.

They have a nice family dinner in the kitchen, and Natasha reflects as she always does that Steve will make an _excellent_ mate for someone who doesn't mind huge males. She has seen the pictures from before the process, and really wishes Steve hadn't grown so much in becoming Captain America.

She says so to Clint long after they leave, back on their own floor with the girls tucked into their web, and he laughs. "I will always be glad I was short enough to catch your eye."

"And such a good dancer, too," she says, turning her head to kiss his cheek and then relaxing in his arms again. They have to go to a big public Christmas party tomorrow, but it will only be the twenty-third, so she doesn't have to deprive her spiderlings of a family Christmas or pull out an explanation for them before they can even pass for all human.

“Thanks, baby,” Clint says, amused. They'll dance in the human style tomorrow night, and even if Natasha doesn't really like being conspicuous, she's human enough to enjoy a party and a pretty dress when it isn't for a mission. Not that galas aren't their own kind of mission, but they're much less stressful than the real kind.

The girls fuss a bit at being left, big enough to start to chafe under their restriction to the tower, but Natasha makes up their little faces like her own, and promises to have Clint bring them back some sweets. Natasha can digest sugar, of course, unlike most real spiders, but the girls have inherited Clint's sweet tooth, enjoying ghastly things like fluffer-nutters with white chocolate chips. They're thrilled with their first-ever lipstick after seeing Natasha apply it so often, and are in a cheerful mood when the team leaves.

They're beginning to get cranky by the time Natasha and Clint finally come back, but their joy at the reunion clears their tempers, and they stop pinching and biting each other to run over and cling to their parents, climbing Natasha's long skirt and rumpling Clint's shirt and making both of them laugh. The girls giggle as well, and soon they're in a cuddlepile on the floor around Clint, nibbling on horrible milk chocolate bonbons with artificial cherry filling as they watch him play 'Amnesia: The Dark Descent.' Natasha is pretty sure this would scar normal human children for life, but spiderlings think it's hilarious to play peek-a-boo with the funny-looking monsters, and the scary sound cues make them giggle. Clint of course doesn't flail and shriek like so many people apparently do, but he does sometimes jump and/or curse, and the girls find that even funnier.

JARVIS quietly announces Tony's presence, and Natasha invites him. He's still wearing his rumpled suit and loosened tie, and grins at the girls and Clint, who mutters, “Hey,” completely focused on a difficult point in the game, sniper's gaze fixed on the screen. 

Tony chuckles, and joins Natasha on the couch. “Jesus, that is so cute.”

“I know, right?” she says, smiling.

“Actually...” He scoots over to the side, almost sitting on the arm. “Hey, J, can you get a picture of this?”

“Of course, sir,” JARVIS says. A moment later an image of Clint and the girls appears on Tony's phone. They're arranged almost like dogs in a fan-shaped harness, and Natasha is visible behind them. It's a bit candid for her, but it's not as if her love for her mate and her brood is any real secret, and it's a really cute picture. Tony just grins, and within seconds has given her a Santa Claus hat and put antlers on Clint and all the girls. It's the work of only another moment or two to add a glowing red nose for Clint, who really does look like he's guiding a sleigh through the fog onscreen if nowhere else, and an ornate 'Merry Christmas.'

“So yeah,” he says, “this is the intra-team Christmas card this year. Just so you know.” 

She knows he'd delete it if she asked, and smiles. “I want a hard copy.”

“Done and done,” Tony says, and smiles back.

**Author's Note:**

> The basic idea for that photo was digiridork's, bless their heart. <3


End file.
